by Gabi Moore
He eased up a little with the knife.
“Buddy, it’s too late for that anyway. My guys are already on their way to her now, to finish what you couldn’t…”
I twisted and moaned. I couldn’t let it end like this. Not when she was in danger and needed me.
“She’ll run. She’s already gone. You won’t catch her,” I hissed.
“Won’t we? How do you think we found out where she was the first time, you idiot? Here’s a clue – maybe being pregnant has taken that crazy Evie edge off her, huh?”
I snapped to attention.
“What did you say?”
“It’s not a secret pal. She was so desperate, running around trying to figure out whom the father of her child was, and, what can I say, she got sloppy. We got a hold of her medical records and tracked her down. Boom.”
I felt like the world in front of me was getting dimmer and dimmer, folding into a small circle before my eyes like the end of an old cartoon.
“She really is pregnant?”
“Oh yes she is …congratulations, by the way. Too bad it’s a short-lived thing, huh? C’est la vie, pal,” he said and laughed to himself.
She was pregnant.
I was the father.
“She was hard to track, make no mistake. That woman was one of my earliest teachers, so I knew every trick to look for. We’ll get her again in the end though.”
My mind went into hyper drive. All at once, as though I was watching sixteen movies at a time, all layered on top of one another and played on fast forward, I saw her. Evie. In all her glory. Those painted red-pink lips. Those narrow hips and even narrower eyes. The way she had stared into my soul when we were alone with one another, our bodies knotted together, fucking like it was the end of the world and we were last two people alive in it…
This was it.
The life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing that people always talk about. And it was …beautiful. I was the father of Evie’s child – and what else did we do that night but create something brilliant and strange and new? – and no way in fucking hell was I going to leave her now. I couldn’t die. There was just no way. I was mad as hell at her. But I wasn’t going to let her die either.
Growling like something had possessed me, I dug deep and pulled on every last drop of oxygen, every last dribble of energy I had left and sent it blasting through my fatigued muscles. I exploded against my capture and burst my body against his, jerking my legs up to knee his stomach and then, with immense effort, hoisting myself up on his neck, yanking down and bringing his face into kneecap. The force sent him staggering backwards, arms flailing.
He grimaced at me, wielded the knife at me again, giving me only a split second to duck and tackle him around his ample mid-section. Knowing his dagger would soon have clear access to stab down at me from above, I dropped all my weight down low, tucked myself between his tree stump thighs and pulled him off balance, sending him stumbling forward – and dropping the knife.
Quick as lightning I reached for it. When I spun around and turned to face him again, he was readying himself for another attack. I gathered myself to my feet but only managed to make it to my knees before he lurched at me again. As though it had a mind of its own, the knife in my hand found its way to his barrel chest.
He froze. We both watched the other to see how bad the damage was. Panting, he looked down. I didn’t have to look to know that it was a solid, deep stab. I could feel the wetness pouring out of him as I held the blade there, the hilt right up against the cotton of his shirt. His grasp on me softened. I let him go, and he slumped down to the ground, still looking up at me. He had the look of a man who’s been cut off in conversation. The look of a man confused that the story didn’t end how he had planned it to.
I backed away from him and looked over my shoulder. I leaned forward, wiped the blade clean using his own shirt, and he watched me with fading interest. I hated this part. Dead was easy. Alive was easy. It was this messy shit in the middle that most people found really upsetting. He lifted a weak head at me, a trickle of blood snaking out the corner of his mouth.
I don’t know why I stood there. I don’t know what I was waiting for. For him to tell me that it was OK? That he understood why I had to do what I did? As his eyes watched me I could feel the heat leaving him, could feel him flickering out like pixels dying on a screen. I turned on my heel and walked briskly away.
The day was as bright as it was a moment ago. And still as warm. But now there was a bite to the air somehow. She hadn’t lied after all. I walked as quickly as I could without arousing any suspicion, put my neck down and headed back to my apartment. I did a few loops of my block and then, satisfied that I hadn’t been seen and wasn’t being followed, went inside and locked the door behind me, adrenaline still rattling all through me.
I didn’t know how long I had before they came after me. But I couldn’t let them find me again. I had to keep running. I had to make this right.
I had to get to her… before they did.
Chapter 12 - Evelyn
I looked down at the dragon on my sleeve. I knew that it wasn’t really a three dimensional, living, breathing dragon, but then again, I could find no reason to resist the thought that in some ways, it might be, and I wanted it to be, and so did it even matter? I stroked my finger up and down the embroidered ribs of its spine.
Perhaps being a picture was just a different way of being a real flesh and blood creature anyway? And from the dragon’s perspective, I could be written off because of my lack of stitching and my dull colors…
For god’s sake, Evie, what are you even thinking, just pull yourself together.
I sat upright, blinked hard and looked ruefully at the faint brown powder remnants on the night stand beside me. The bed underneath me felt heavy, its satiny bedspread the most upsetting shade of pink and the motel room lights overhead casting a mustard glow over everything.
It’s not that I was addicted. I had thought about taking more Pink Kisses for a while now. Because I had a death wish? Because I missed him? I don’t know. In any case our in-house chemists had stressed over and over again – this stuff was nothing like heroin; I didn’t have to worry about addiction.
Not really.
“But if you find something that feels better than real life, would you need to be addicted to keep coming back to it?” he had said, and laughed a big lecherous laugh. I had ignored him at the time, but now I understood what he meant perfectly. It’s not that I was remotely addicted. I wasn’t obsessed with it. It was that I was seriously failing to find any obsession for my “real life” anymore.
I was only three months into my pregnancy, and I hated to admit to myself that I was getting tired. I woke up ravenous, ate like a wolf and needed a nap by 4pm every day. It was probably nothing that anyone would have noticed, but I sure could feel it. My reaction times were slowed, just a little. My head wasn’t as crystal clear anymore. My muscles felt less tight. I felt weakened. Softened.
I gathered myself, cracked my knuckles and turned on the TV. An obscene coincidence: a news special about Pink Kisses.
I turned up the volume and tried to focus on the woman’s mouth and the language she was apparently speaking. Her face swirled a little, her features pulsing and refusing to settle down. The strange haze all around my vision made me feel like I wasn’t quite keeping things straight. This wasn’t like the first time with Jack. I felt weird. Like I could smell her childhood in Boston. Like her nose was a new language. I could see the tiny units that made up her image on the tube – red and green and blue – and with an enormous effort I forced my eyes to see them all come together, and focused on her words. The cameras cut to a man in lab coat gesturing casually.
“What we are seeing here is very nearly a new class of drugs altogether, and the danger is that we’re not sure why it works the way it does. Now this idea of an idiosyncratic entheogen, or something that adjusts itself to the user, is neither proven or disproven as yet, but researchers a
re at work trying to isolate a predictable pattern of response so we can--”
“So doctor, can you please clarify, the drug is as yet not a restricted substance?”
“Now, Elizabeth, I won’t weigh in on that, obviously we’ve had very concerning reports of people who are taking this without knowing what it is, where it comes from etcetera. To answer your question, no, it remains unclassified but I would strongly caution people against seeking it out – not illegal doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea, you know?”
They shared a good-natured laugh.
“Doctor, please tell us, we’ve heard claims that certain individuals are more sensitive than others to this chemical cocktail while others remain unaffected. Could you comment on that?”
“Well, yes, this is what makes a substance like this so difficult to understand. We still haven’t ruled out that there are in fact several varieties or batches on the black market as we speak which may account for the effect. But yes, some are claiming that the drug is particularly …intense for a small number of people,” he said, and nodded to himself.
“Doctor, as far as you can tell, are the claims that the blend is a powerful aphrodisiac substantiated?”
The doctor, in his little TV screen within the TV screen, puffed his chest out a little and smiled tolerantly.
“Well, now, I can’t comment on that actually. Many drugs, when they first enter the public consciousness, are touted as, eh, aphrodisiacs, but this is seldom the case. In all likelihood, Pink Kisses has an effect on the body similar to other common street drugs, and nothing more. Perhaps there may be a heightened sense that empathy is increased, but certainly there are no known substances that allow us to actually, eh…”
“To read minds?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“So, no need to start talking about it like it’s the elixir of youth, or that it turns everyone into sexy super heroes?”
They both laughed again.
“No, uh, Elizabeth, I don’t believe so,” he said.
She nodded, rearranged her papers on her glass desk and smiled into the camera.
“I have on the line with me Chief of Police Desmond Jones, who strongly urges the public to--”
I turned the TV off.
It was so loud. So obnoxious.
But it got me thinking.
The dragon on my dressing gown stopped writing on my sleeve and listened as I tried to think. Could I be… was I possibly… what if both Jack and I were having a stronger than usual reaction to this stuff? I had seen it in his eyes that day he came to kill me. He knew what I was talking about. He was there with me, that night in the container. This wasn’t an ordinary substance. And what I had done with Jack …well, there was nothing ordinary about any of that, either.
My hand went absentmindedly to my belly.
Since that night, I had experienced intense, almost lucid dreams. I couldn’t explain it, but I started to feel like my skin was alive somehow. I thought I could hear people’s thoughts as they walked past me on the subway, or stood behind me in a checkout line. And I felt like he was there with me, in my mind. Like even now, him and I were tangled in invisible knots and loops behind the scenes, drawn together like beads on a string.
I woke up several times every night flustered, positively certain that I had orgasmed repeatedly in my dreams. My body seemed like it was changing too. Juicier. More sensitive and receptive. But wasn’t that just the pregnancy? I couldn’t take this stuff again, no question. Even if it wasn’t addictive, it was just dumb to take the risk. But then again, if you had something even better than reality just sitting there, right at your fingertips, why would you want to stop taking it?
I flopped down onto the bed and sighed loudly.
I was horny again.
These days, I was always horny.
I wanted Jack. I wanted big, strong, angry, beautiful Jack to lift me up on my tip toes and plough into me until my whole world broke apart and split at the seams. I heard my own thoughts and knew how crazy they sounded, but I couldn’t stop them from clattering on anyway. I needed his cock like it was some lost piece of me. Coming without him deep inside me felt wrong somehow. And maddeningly, just thinking about it was turning me on again.
I nestled back into the pillows, and let an idle hand slink down to the rim of my dragon stitched bathrobe. They all swiveled their crazy Chinese heads to watch me with interest, their red whiskers curling and uncurling, little spiral clouds puffing out their nostrils. I peeled back the edge of the robe and bared my naked skin to the air, relishing it. I’d be fine laying low here for the night, but in the morning, I’d have to hit the road again. I could think about a more elaborate plan later, once I was sure I had put more distance between me and …whoever still wanted me dead. I wanted to trust Jack, but I didn’t know what he’d do. Would he risk being a target himself, just because the baby was his?
My fingertips sunk deeper and found that permanently wet, delicious spot between my legs. I let my knees flop open and my head tilt back into the pillows. I liked to imagine my touch was actually him. Jack, with his eyes that had no dimensions, and his magical dick that seemed able to reach further inside me than I even thought was possible. I stroked gently and let my eyes flutter closed. If I focused just right, if I could tune out all the noises outside, it felt nearly possible to summon him right here, in the quiet spot right between my eyes, in that hungry space twitching underneath my touch…
I felt the tiny muscles around my spine tighten as I arched up, imagining him floating around and above me like a spirit. I breathed in deeply and pulled him into my lungs, pulled him in deeply into my belly and felt him glowing inside there, pulsing, stirring up a swirl of pleasure so intense it was like all of me became a sex organ, and every last molecule of my body could be fucked by every last molecule of his.
A haze of ecstasy floated around me, and with each breath, it heated and tightened closer and closer around my physical form, till it came to a buzzing ball right at the center of my clit. My mouth fell open as I struggled to breathe enough. I was carrying his baby. Part of him was in me already. The thought alone was so deeply erotic I couldn’t help but move my fingers more quickly.
Dripping and eager, I slipped in one finger and then another, and instantly it was him inside me again, and we were back in the container together, and time and space were just minor inconveniences, just tiny obstacles in the way of the only reality for me now: his juicy cock, and how I craved nothing in the world except to have its thick length crammed all the way up inside me while I came and came and came…
A noise.
My fingers froze. My ears pricked. Instantly, I understood that there was someone at the door. Three men. I could hear the weight of their bodies pressing down into the soft rubber soles of their shoes on the concrete outside the front door of my motel room. How was that even possible? My eyes snapped open and my muscles tightened as I tried to listen for more. I was on the brink of an orgasm, but with my attention trained on the new noises, I felt like I could almost hear the whooshing sound of their lungs as they expanded and emptied of air.
They were going to come in. They were going to kill me. Jack had failed, and now they had sent another task force after me. By the time I had finished this thought my body was already up off the bed and scrambling for the bathroom. I scooped up a bag; my coat and then I put my shoes on. By the time they kicked in the door and came bursting in, I was hiding in the bath tub behind the shower curtain, the wire shower caddy in my hands, its hooked edge pointed away from me like a weapon.
“Find her,” came a barely human grunt and the three swooped through the small room, slamming open the wardrobe doors and knocking over a lamp. Then they came into the bathroom.
I could smell them.
Somehow, it was as though my body had reabsorbed all the sexual energy I had generated a moment ago and was now transmuting it into a raw, animal will to survive. I felt my limbs powering up like the rockets getting ready
to blast off.
In slow motion, I saw one of them walk over to whip the shower curtain open, but I tracked the blurred shape of his body behind the thin white plastic and with all my might, lashed out and sent the hook right into the middle of him. He howled out in pain and wobbled where he stood. Quick as a flash I jumped onto him, wrapping him in the shower curtain and bringing his protesting body into the bath with me.
I wedged my foot down into his hip crease and grabbed two handfuls of the plastic, pulling it taut over his face. For a few breaths the plastic fluttered inside the cavity of his opened mouth as he gasped for air, but I pulled the sheet even more tightly, squashing out his features into a screaming white mask. I had already grabbed the gun in his hand and aimed it at the other two who were now crammed in the bathroom with me, trying to find a way to leap over their strangled leader and get at me.
I kicked him forward so that his heavy body went slumping into them, buying me enough time to spring up, foot in the soap dish, knee on the window ledge. I yanked the ancient window handle open and threw myself into the tight space, hoping to dear god that me and my baby bump could squeeze through. I pulled myself and my bathrobe through just in time to feel the vibration of gunshots ricocheting off the tiles between my toes.
I fell a few hard feet to the ground and quickly stood to see where I was. I spun on my heel and ran parallel to the building, knowing that they would soon be clamoring through that window and firing at me. I sped along, hugging the wall, feet moving faster than I could think. My hands flew all over my body to find my car keys. I checked that the coast was clear, then scrambled out into the parking lot, crouched, and quietly opened the door.
By the time I had turned the ignition I saw them both running out in front of me, guns drawn, firing freely at my car as I reversed and skidded out of there. I heard the sound of metal singing against metal, of the very air being sliced open by bullets. I saw it all unfold before me like a beautiful oil painting, like a ballet. It was though I could taste each and every tiny element, like I could feel exactly what their next moves would be, but more than that, even the inanimate objects came to life around me. I felt like every neuron in my brain was snapping in a great symphony, like all my muscles were humming with a wild energy that nearly burned as it moved through me. I had never felt more alive in my entire life.